this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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In Terry Pratchett's wonderfully witty Discworld novel, Going Postal, the topic of pi comes up in a rather humorous and characteristically Pratchettian way.
The newly appointed Postmaster General, Moist von Lipwig, encounters a rather eccentric inventor named Bloody Stupid Johnson. Bloody Stupid Johnson is known for his, well, stupidly brilliant inventions. One of these inventions is a new kind of postal sorting engine.
When discussing the design of a wheel for this engine, Bloody Stupid Johnson proudly states that he designed it so that pi is exactly three.
This is in contrast with how pi is otherwise consistently expressed on the Disc, which is "three and a bit."
Notably, Bloody Stupid Johnson is so skilled/inept that he actually does make pi equal to three within the machine... somehow... which breaks reality in a small amount of space inside it.
Apparently King David had this skill as well, since this is mentioned twice in the old testament:
Clearly π was equal to 3 in old testament times, but geometry got all screwy when Jesus died for our sines.